This footlose gator story just gets better and better.
After their gator wrassler's ignominious defeat at the hands (claws?) of the wily aquatic beast, city officials have
called in the big guns from
Gatorland, the Sunshine State's well-known (at least among Central Floridians) road-side gator farm/attraction (NBC4 slide show
here).
To say it's been some time since I've thought about Gatorland, much less heard someone speak it's name, is to put it mildly. In fact, I guess I subconsciously assumed it had gone the way of other quaint Florida attractions, lost to history, the victim of, well, it's own unremitting corniness. It certainly harkens back to a Florida (and a nation) that had different standards of excellence for entertainment. People back then would actually drive long distances to see a
mermaid show, or take a ride in a
glass-bottomed boat in order to peer at the wondrous display of aquatic life inhabiting the bottom of a fresh water spring.
I'm heartened to know that I was wrong, that Gatorland thrives still. And I will say this now before God and Man: if the Gatorland people can't catch this gator, no one can.
Except, possibly, the gator tamer at
Cypress Gardens.
